“Why on earth do you want a cannon?” my wife asked when I explained that I had spotted the sweetest little example, just looking for a new home, in a local antiques shop. Married to an avid collector of ancient armour and weaponry, she is fairly inured to bits of what she deems
“rusty metal” occasionally being snuck into the house. However, a 19th-century working naval cannon? Little chance of slipping that in undetected; none at all of keeping it hidden. Anyway, why would I? In the world of big boys’ toys, if you’ve got cannon, flaunt it.
“We mount it facing the front gate and if we like our visitors we fire confetti, if we don’t we give them a broadside of rotten fruit,” I suggested. That raised a laugh and a grudging acceptance that having cannon outside your door does add a certain je ne sais quoi to a property, although perhaps not the sort your average estate agent might recommend.
I deemed that one laugh justification enough and, £500 later, I was facing a problem all buyers of cannon need to get their heads around. While my new “baby” is relatively puny in the world of ship sinkers – just over 3ft long and made of cast iron – it still weighs around half a ton.
It took three men, a trolley and an almost broken leg (mine) to manoeuvre the remorseless lump of metal into my Range Rover without further damaging us or it. Anything larger and I would have needed a low-loader.
